Forensic Transmissions

On October 4, 2012, 17-year-old Jake Evans called 911 from his home in Aledo, Texas, and informed the operator that he’d just shot and killed his sister and mother. She asks if he’s sure they’re dead. The boy replies, “Yes… It’s weird, I wasn’t even really angry with them. It just kind of happened. I’ve been kind of planning on killing for a while now… This is probably selfish of me to say, but to me, I felt like they were suffocating me in a way. Obviously, you know, I’m pretty – I guess – evil.” Other than the fact that his mother and sister were “suffocating” him, Evans has no explanation for the murders, which he committed when his father was out of town and his two older sisters were out. The home-schooled Jake, who was apparently a shy, quiet boy, reloaded his revolver at least once during the shootings. His family lived on two acres in a gated community and his mother was a public school teacher. In a written confession, he wrote that he intended to kill not only his mom and younger sister, but also his older sisters and grandparents. In April 2015, Evans was sentenced to 45 years in prison. Listen to the 911 call here. Transcript of the 911 call

In 2017, failed doctor Leon Jacob, 40, and his veterinarian girlfriend, Valerie Daniels, 48, were convicted of planning the double murder of their ex-partners. But the “hit man” whom Jacob hired was in fact an undercover officer working for the Houston Police Department. The “hit man” was paid after showing the Jacob gruesome, staged photos of Verikas bound and gagged, and Mack McDaniel, covered in fake blood, pictured as a slain corpse. A short time after her arrest, Valerie McDaniel killed herself by jumping off the balcony of her apartment. The trial revealed that Leon Jacob had an extensive history of obsessive behavior and violence towards women. He was shown to have stalked and abused numerous women, including his ex-wife Annie. He was sentenced to life in prison for two counts of solicitation of capital murder. In this extract from the penalty hearing, Megan Verikas describes the lasting effects of Jacob’s abusive behavior. Jacob is represented by the “legendary” Houston defense attorney George Parnham, 78, who defended  both Andrea Yates and Clara Harris. He is slow, hard of hearing, out of touch, and deeply annoying. Listen to the episode here.

This episode contains parts 1, 2, and 6 of a seven-part interview conducted with Steven Fishman in November 1988 by false memory expert Richard Ofshe, and attorney Marc Nurik. Fishman was currently facing several criminal charges relating to a mail fraud scheme he’d set up when he was working as a financial planner for the Church of Scientology. In the interview, Fishman reveals various aspects of Scientology doctrine, his own Scientology involvement, and the church’s response to his arrest. He claims that church staff had ordered him to murder his psychologist, Uwe Geertz, and then to commit suicide. The interviewers, Ofshe and Nurik, are smart, open minded, and speak to Fishman in his own language. They present as affable and non-threatening, asking lots of questions and appearing to follow Fishman’s lines of thought. They don’t interrupt, contradict, or interject. For his part, Fishman appears to have a fascinatingly complex, detailed and coherent worldview, yet it is completely off the wall. He describes how he became the true father of Jesus Christ, and how he eats his soups in alphabetical order “because I don’t believe in randomity.” The court found Fishman to be sane, and he made a plea bargain, serving three years of a five-year sentence for wire fraud and money laundering. In October 2009, in connection with another fraud scheme, Fishman was sentenced to another 21 years in prison. Listen to the episode here.

Michael Bever, who committed the Broken Arrow familicide at just 16, opens up about the harrowing events that led to the tragic night. He shares that his older brother, Robert, was the mastermind, driven by a desire for infamy. Their chilling plan involved a cross-country killing spree following the murders of their family. Bever's cold reflections on his actions reveal deep psychological turmoil and a haunting desire for notoriety, while Detective Eric Bentz’s calm demeanor contrasts sharply with the horror of the confessions.

In Dahmer’s defense, Fred Berlin testified that the defendant was unable to conform his conduct at the time that he committed the crimes because he was suffering from necrophilia. Dr. Judith Becker, a professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, also diagnosed Dahmer with necrophilia. The final defense expert to testify, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Carl Wahlstrom, diagnosed Dahmer with borderline personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, necrophilia, alcohol dependence, and psychotic disorder not otherwise specified. For the prosecution, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Phillip Resnick testified that Dahmer didn’t suffer from primary necrophilia because he preferred live sexual partners. Dr. Fred Fosdel testified that Dahmer was without mental disease or defect at the time he committed the murders, and able to differentiate between right and wrong. Dr. Park Dietz testified that he did not believe Dahmer to be suffering from any mental disease or defect at the time that he committed the crimes, stating: “Dahmer went to great lengths to be alone with his victim and to have no witnesses,” adding that that there was ample evidence that Dahmer prepared in advance for each murder. Each attorney was allowed to speak for two hours. For the defense, Gerald Boyle argued that Dahmer’s compulsive killings were the result of a sickness he couldn’t control. Prosecutor Michael McCann, on the other hand, described Dahmer as sane and in full control of his actions. The jury agreed that Dahmer was sane and not suffering from a mental disorder at the time of each of the 15 murders for which he was tried. There was no death penalty in Wisconsin, so Dahmer was sentenced to life without parole. He was bludgeoned to death by a fellow inmate on November 28, 1994,

1. On June 10 2012, Kaleb Langdale, 17, was swimming with friends in a river by the Gulf Coast of Florida, near Fort Myers, when a 10-foot alligator chomped down on one of his arms, then dragged him into a death roll. Kaleb knew he was about to die, so he put his foot on the gator’s mouth and tugged until his arm ripped off under the elbow, then made his way to the bank as the gator swam off with his arm. When he reached the bank, his friends called 911. The alligator was later shot and killed. 2. In August 2015, Rachael Lilienthal, 37, was swimming away from a crowded beach area near Wekiva Island, Florida, when an alligator clamped its jaws on her right arm and thrashed her around. A couple in a canoe hit the gator with their oars, and it swam off, but when they helped Rachael into their canoe, they saw that her arm had been bitten off just above the elbow. The alligator was shot and killed. 3. On June 2, 2018, Jordan Broderick, 15, was floating on a raft in a river in Florida’s Ocala Forest when a 9-foot alligator began stalking her. Jordan made her way to the shore, but the gator followed her, where it was joined by others. The terrified girl took refuge up a tree while her mother called 911. When the police arrived, they shot and killed the main alligator, and helped the girl, who was unhurt, to safety. 4. On June 8, 2018, at the Silver Lakes Rotary Nature Park, a man called 911 after two loose, anxious pit bulls ran into the parking lot. He recognized them as two of the three dogs belonging to “an oriental lady” he’d seen earlier. The pit bulls led him to the back of the park, where he saw the third dog barking and bleeding, with a large gash in its side, and a 12-foot alligator lurking nearby. “I think an alligator got this lady,” said the caller. He was right. Shizuka Matsuki, 47, who may have been trying to save her dog, had been dragged off by the gator. When it was shot and cut open, Matzuki’s arm was found in its stomach. Listen to the episode here.

On April 12, 2006, a ten-year-old girl named Jamie Bolin went missing from her home  in an apartment complex in Purcell, Oklahoma. Five days later, her naked and mutilated body was found in a plastic storage container in the apartment of her downstairs neighbor, 29-year-old Kevin Ray Underwood. After his arrest, Underwood was interviewed by two Oklahoma FBI agents. His confession is disturbing not only for its bizarre content, but for the nonchalant way in which he recounts the crime. “It started off with cannibalism-the thought of eating someone was appealing to me. It kept evolving from there,” he admits, going on to explain in considerable detail how he attempted to carry out this plan on Jamie Bolin, whom he had decided was a convenient victim. The FBI interrogators do a fine job of remaining unperturbed while drawing Underwood out and encouraging him to make it clear that he was in his right mind when he committed the crime–he knew right from wrong, and was thinking about how to avoid detection. But, as his confession reveals, his plan went wrong from the first, and his confession belies his claim that he “didn’t, believe in violence, or hurting anyone.” His plan was to abduct a child, and “while they were still alive and gagged, I was going to drape them over the bathtub and cut off their head, and then hang them and let the body all drain out. I was gonna keep the body around for a couple of days, I was going to set the head on my desk so it could watch me, and keep the corpse in my bed, sleeping with it, having sex with it for a day or two, and then I was going to start butchering them and cooking them.” When asked whether he bought any special equipment for the job, Underwood replies, “Just the barbeque skewers, some meat tenderizer, and a hacksaw to cut open the head to get to the brain, because I wanted to eat the brain and the heart and some of the organs.” The confession is notable for Underwood’s robotic delivery (he was later diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome), his lack of remorse and empathy, his admission that he took a break from mutilating the corpse to chat with a girl online, and, finally, his loud fit of vomiting. On February 29, 2008, Underwood was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to death. He is currently on Oklahoma’s Death Row. Listen to the episode here. Interview Transcript. Transcript of online chats

On October 22, 2012, 61-year-old Satyavathi Venna was found stabbed to death in her  apartment just outside Philadelphia. Three days later, the body of her 10-month old granddaughter, Saanvi, was found in a bag in the steam room of the apartment complex gym. On October 25, Raghunandan Yandamuri, 29, an information technology worker who knew the Venna family and lived in the same building, was arrested in connection with the murders.  Two days before the crime, Yandamuri and his wife had attended a party at the Venna family apartment. They had met Chenchu and Venkata Venna, Saanvi’s parents, who mentioned that, since they both work during the day, their daughter would be staying with her grandmother.  Yandamuri held the baby during the party and discussed the gold jewelry she was wearing. On October 26, he was interrogated by police for several hours, and eventually confessed to the murders. Yandamuri says he went to the family’s apartment with the intention of kidnapping Saanvi for a $50,000 ransom, since he believed the family to be wealthy. He fatally stabbed 61-year-old Satyavathi Venna when she confronted him. He claims that he didn’t intend to kill the grandmother, but when he had Saanvi in his arms, Satyavathi lunged at him and he fell backward, cutting her throat with his knife. Yandamuri says he planned on taking good care of the baby, but also on holding her until her parents paid him. On October 8, 2014, Yandamuri was found guilty of the murders, and sentenced to death. However, on February 13, 2015, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf announced a moratorium on executions in the state. Listen to the episode here.

In November 2012, wealthy businessman Wayne Millard, 71, was found shot dead in his Ontario home. His son, Dellen, 30, a fun-loving party guy who inherited his father’s multi-million dollar aviation business, was interviewed by the police about the incident. Although he seemed unusually emotionless during the interview, the death was ruled a suicide. On May 6, 2013, Dellen Millard and his friend Mark Smich answered an ad placed by a man named Tim Bosma, 32, who wanted to sell his pickup truck. The three men went for a drive, and Bosma never returned. When his remains were found on an incinerator on Millard’s farm. Millard and Smich were arrested, and on June 17, 2016, they were sentenced to life in prison. In 2017, the two men were also convicted of the murder of Laura Babcock, Dellen Millard’s ex-girlfriend, who went missing in July 2012. Her body was never found. Two years after Wayne Millard’s death was ruled a suicide, Dellen Millard was charged with his father’s murder. Listen to the episode here.

In this gripping discussion, Loyta Sloley, an Orlando hospital technician, and her ex-boyfriend, James Clayton, delve into the harrowing events of the day that changed their lives forever. They recount the troubling 911 calls that revealed Loyta's distress and the chaotic responses that followed. The emotional weight of their fragmented conversations highlights the urgency of the situation and the crucial missteps in emergency communication. Listeners are left reflecting on the tragic fate that unfolded within just a few hours.